Yes, it says it is about Kings Dominion.
But it isn't really. I am SURE Mark Shapiro and Six Flags Great Adventure's General Manager should think a thing or two about this incredibly insightful essay.
That's why I've posted it HERE, instead of in "Other Parks."
Here it is:
Kings Dominion
[2 November 2006]
Though they aspire to be as safe as suburbia, amusement parks provide pleasure beyond class consciousness.
by Paul Caine
During the summer months of my early adolescence, I spent a lot of time at my not-so-local theme park. Located near Richmond, Virginia, but within driving distance of the Washington, D.C. suburbs, Kings Dominion was a hamlet of fun amidst the confederate flags and tobacco fields, a bastion of dubious diversity on an unremarkable plot of converted farmland. At Kings Dominion my family would move from Old Virginia to the Congo with relative ease, traversing the hodgepodge of themes, consistently spending money on extra-large lemonades and impossible carnival games. At Kings Dominion, all cultures can indulge their shared affinity for knocking over milk cartons, spearing balloons with darts, and throwing basketballs into undersized hoops.
I came to the theme park for the roller coasters, though, as I imagine most others did. I enjoyed best the ones that left vapor trails of lung-bursting screams�"massive and foreboding with their steel skeletons, replete with corkscrews and death-defying drops�"and gave hints of an endless summer. But while I waited in line for the Anaconda, I was actually witnessing a curious social experiment with regard to class. Stay at a park for long enough and little discrepancies magnify: lower- and middle-class attitudes toward the park�"and toward leisure and recreation�"deviate greatly. The pleasant escapism of the theme park produces a desire to escape, as the park’s exotic nature is transformed into tacky artifice. Researchers have known this for some time: the classic 1954 sociological study by August Hollingshead, Elmtown’s Youth, divided a Midwestern town under study into five social classes and found that their leisure patterns varied: Predictably the upper class spent more time in private institutions consorting with other members of the upper classes; the lower classes generally visited public institutions.
The privately owned but popularly revered theme park, a unique institution in modern America, attempts to bridge such gaps. It’s a place of pleasure and relaxation, but its otherworldly nature makes it structurally immune from most class implications. It is unlike the mall, which is stratified by the merchandise sold in its various stores, and unlike shopping centers, which bear traces of the income level of their neighborhoods (the pavilion with the Wegmans versus the one with the dollar store and the Rastafarians selling weed on the front benches). Libraries, America’s poorly funded testaments to democracy, appeal only to those who enjoy quiet reading (or covert viewing of Internet pornography). Even beaches have their hierarchy: the well-off go to their exclusive enclaves and the rest find the tiniest bit of solace under a blanket of sunscreen among the screaming children.
The theme park is singular in that its reputation remains relatively sterling regardless of those who visit it. Robert Snyder of New York University believes “the ideal American pleasure ground is a Disney-style theme park...a suburban retreat for affluent professionals.” The theme park, of course, is a change from the early days of the amusement park, which were strictly lowbrow. Coney Island in the early 20th century, for example, typified base American pleasure, but in the best way possible. Gravel-throated barkers offering the spectacle of the sideshow strolled the boardwalk, shadowed by the great wooden roller coasters of yesteryear. But the spectacle appealed to the lower classes, to those with big dreams and few means of finding them fulfilled. The old amusement parks on Coney Island were inexpensive, and the sensational sideshows�"“Florida Prison Sweatbox Torture,” “The Rubber Girl”�"were politically incorrect but exceedingly popular.
In the past, conflict between classes was often characterized by the resistance new immigrants met at the hands of older immigrants. The amusement park in the early 20th century was a veritable melting pot, a place for marginalized peoples to come together as a diverse and polyglot but nevertheless united America. Major ethnic blocs in the New York area�"Jewish, Irish, Italian�"came to Coney Island in droves; pursuit of a similar American pleasure was their common cause. “It was no coincidence that this Coney Island flourished during the height of the immigrant era,” writes Kevin Baker in The New York Times (“A Coney Island Kind of Fun,” 07/02/01). “New Americans came to see their worst fears and their best hopes for the future, not to mention new thrills and sensations of every kind.” These hopes and fears are reflected in the visceral pleasures of the sideshows, which presented an “otherness” far beyond that of the immigrants. Coney Island, by deindividuating cultures and presenting shocking (and thus reassuring) examples of difference, made a unified American culture seem like a reality.
But times change, and through the 1950s, Coney Island’s popularity waned. Postwar families moved to the suburbs and gradually, the amusement park shifted toward the Six Flags model, that of a suburban summer destination. The concept of theme park as affluent Shangri-La proposes a sort of historical amnesia: it neglects the rich history of the amusement park in favor of a standardized, sanitized facsimile of the original, and dulls the old amusement parks’ idiosyncrasies through never-ending corporate tie-ins and focus-grouped family friendliness. Six Flags, for example, runs 30 North American theme parks, all containing tie-ins with DC Comics, along with Home Depot and NASCAR, among others. If it’s tricky to choose between Six Flags New England and Six Flags America (Washington, D.C.), don’t sweat it too much�"both parks have Superman- and Batman-themed rides.
The theme park may have evolved to appeal to a rising middle class interested in putting memories of otherness behind it and willing to pay lavishly for the privilege. Like the old amusement parks of yore, the modern American pleasure gardens still cater to those seeking escape from the grind and from America’s class-based stratifications, even as they try to branch out to the upper tax brackets by scrubbing everything down and bumping the prices up. Everything is expensive at theme parks, but goods are presented in a way that increases their perceived value. Many theme parks present candy stores thematically, creating the illusion of novelty and uniqueness. It’s surprisingly easy to drop big bucks on Ye Olde Circled Wagon Fudge, even if it’s not particularly affordable. It’s not another unneeded item; it’s a special token, worthy of a breach in financial responsibility. It’s not Coney Island anymore, but a marketing machine.
Yet as with Coney Island, it may be one the middle class doesn’t want to deal with. Corporations like Six Flags may target affluent spenders, but their parks will likely be populated by those who shun pretentiousness and relish visceral pleasure: teenagers. Daniel Gross, author of Slate’s Moneybox column, pointed this out:
In order to attract rich people, [theme parks] have to be spectacular destinations like Disneyworld, where people will want to spend a few days…And upscale adults--"at least the upscale adults I know--"will go to great lengths to avoid amusement parks in the summer, with their sweltering heat, long lines, screaming kids, and expensive, unhealthy food. That’s why they buy season passes for their teens and drop them off for the day.
(“Six Flagging,” 06/29/06) In 1998, American Demographics reported “the dilemma for theme parks” was that “middle-aged and older adults may be weary of the very things that give young adults a thrill” (“Parking It for Fun,” April 1998).
The prerogatives of youth may predominate at an amusement park, but understanding amusement parks nevertheless requires the subordination of age to class. When I visited Six Flags, I didn’t see only teens; I saw multigenerational families emerging from rusted pickup trucks, and a large number of older men and women seemingly having a great time. All the while, straitlaced mothers walked among men with biceps the size of cannons. The mothers’ looks of bewilderment made it seem as though they were making a quick, nervous walk down a problem block rather than past a bunch of rides and carnival games.
Theme parks are not problem blocks. You’ll find no liquor stores, no desperation. But still, for many, theme parks are something to be abandoned upon “making it.” For the well-off it’s often a tacky indulgence, filled with the fear of lost children and the undesired exposure to the fears suburban life buffers against. The amusement park’s encouragement of fantasy and thrill, however, catapults willing patrons into other worlds. No matter how upscale theme parks aspire to be, the smell of fried dough and the awkward photo shoots with minor cartoon characters will never acquire stultifying bourgeois prestige. Theme parks represent America’s unrealized potential: the impossibility of space flight becomes possible on a roller coaster, the inconvenience of an exotic vacation dissolves into easy access. At theme parks, the future is limitless. Do we really want to homogenize that?
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/arti...kings-dominion/
Topic: An Essay About The Problems Facing Great Adventure (Read 1219 times)